rooting
by BadWolfKaily
Summary: Shaw was feeling too much and Root was feeling too little. Shaw needs to feel in control and Root needed her to be in control.


When Shaw returns she can't help but feel lost, not herself, like she hasn't had any control over her life for almost a year. No choices, no control, nothing hers. She hates it. Hates not being in control. She's frustrated, growling as she fumbles with drinking a cup of water, hands shaking. She throws the cup against the wall and sighs with anger. Just in time for Root to walk in the door to the end of Shaw's outburst. Tossing a sad smile Root gently closes the front door, putting up her coat and walking to the table to put takeout on the table.

Root doesn't mind cleaning up Shaw's messes as long as she can help her through her recovery she'll buy a dozen more cups and clean up a dozen more broken cups. She gets distracted at the look of confusion on Shaw's face which only leads to her cutting her hand on a shard of glass. Hissing quietly Root finishes up cleaning and tosses out the glass, popping the heel of her hand into her mouth to stop the bleeding. But she's quickly being pushed up against the counter and her hand being wrenched from her mouth and Shaw's mouth is on her hand now.

Dark eyes burning their way into Roots, maybe there's something there. Something to help speed Shaw's recovery along. A spark. As soon as Shaw releases her hand Root watches the spark disappear. And Shaw is back to her food and Root is back to her sad empty feeling, like there's a black hole inside of her, always pulling but never making her full. Even with Shaw's return she feels like part of her died that day. And she hasn't felt alive in so long. It breaks, the guilt, that Shaw is all that matters. Her pain is nothing compared to what Shaw has been through.

She has no right. Or so it seems to her. She's so exhausted from having to be on top of everything, to fight this war. To be in charge, to be the Machine's charge. As much as she loves her God she feels she's failed her in so many ways. And failed Shaw too. The thought keeps running through her head, of every failure she's ever had. Perhaps her mom was speaking about her greatest quality being her own failure. She couldn't save Hanna, she couldn't save her mom, she couldn't save Shaw, or the Machine.

But she has to keep fighting, for them, for herself. To prove them all wrong, to prove something to herself. And so she leaves Shaw to eat her food and finds herself taking the hottest shower she can handle to try and thaw out her body that feels like it's been frozen in place for so long. And so she cries and lets the sting of the hot water try to wake her up.

"Who are you anymore? Without the Machine? Without purpose? Who am I?"

She's losing herself, she can't seem to find reason. If she can't go back to her life before, a killer for hire/hacker, she can't go back to being Samantha Groves because she died a long time ago. What if she can't be Root now? With so many aliases and so many missions it was Shaw who reminded her of herself. But in that time of losing her and finding her she had forgotten who she was. Even with Shaw's return, she felt like a ghost, but it didn't matter because Shaw had had it rough. Helping Shaw find herself would in the end remind Root of who she was and what she was fighting for. Or so she had hoped.

With the water running cold Root shut off the shower, wrapping a towel around her, the cotton brushing against her bright red back. A painfully pleasurable sensation that gave her goosebumps. She found herself standing in her towel in the middle of the bedroom for the longest time or the shortest, she wasn't sure. Her legs felt so weak, as if carrying the fate of the world had become too much of a burden on them. So she knelt by the bed and rested her head against it.

"Who are you anymore?"

She hadn't heard the door open and found the bed under her head dipping, too ashamed to look up at Shaw who she knew must have heard her questioning herself a few minutes ago. Root's body felt like it was buzzing as she ran her hand up Shaw's leg feeling it tense the higher her hand got. Which was soon grasped in Shaw's hand, firm but gentle, and with a gracefulness that Shaw didn't often show she tilted Root's chin up towards her gaze.

"You're Root. You're mine."

And just like that, like making a dying flame burn brighter, Root was reminded by who she was. Because Shaw needed to be in control and Root, well, she needed Shaw to be in control too.


End file.
